Dear Friends, It has been another successful year filled with a variety of Polish Music Center events. We are very proud of everything we have done in 2019, and must now turn to you with a fundraising request that will make next year’s PMC plans come to fruition. First, some of the most important 2019…Continue Reading PMC 2019 Year in Review & Fund Drive
Dear Friend of the Polish Music Center, Our annual ritual of sharing what we have accomplished at the PMC in 2018 and asking for your support continues! Unlike other charitable institutions, we send our appeal letters only once a year, knowing that you will consider them carefully and proudly share in what we have been…Continue Reading PMC 2018 Year in Review
June – December Anniversaries The iconic festival of contemporary music, Warszawska Jesień [Warsaw Autumn], celebrated its 60th anniversary this year. Held in various venues around Warsaw from September 15-23, its programs will examined the phenomenon of the avant-garde, featuring works by the composers of the original avant-garde juxtaposed with the composers of the past sixty years. See…Continue Reading 2017 In Review Part 2
January – June, 2017 Anniversaries UNESCO proclaimed the year of 2017 as “Year of Kosciuszko” honoring the bicentennial of his passing in 1817. General Thaddeus Kosciuszko (1746-1817) was a national hero in Poland and the US, a freedom fighter and military leader, and an ardent advocate for the rights of European serfs, African Slaves, Native…Continue Reading 2017 in Review Part 1
Anniversaries The Witold Lutosławski Festival “Chain XIII” (January 31 – February 13, 2016) was held in Warsaw, featuring five symphonic and chamber music programs and celebrating the important anniversaries of two great Polish maestros: Jan Krenz (90 years) and Jerzy Maksymiuk (80 years). On February 6, the world premiere of Lutosławski’s Interludesfor oboe and bassoon, which the composer worked on throughout the…Continue Reading 2016 in Review
The UK premiere of Krzysztof Penderecki’s Seven Gates of Jerusalem inspired a four-day festival of Polish culture held at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. The Seven Gates: a Journey of Discovery festival (June 23-26) was filled with works by Polish composers from Szymanowski to Zubel and accompanied by film screenings and works inspired by Polish music. The Karol Szymanowski…Continue Reading 2015 in Review – Festivals
In collaboration with William Smialek, former PMC Director Maja Trochimczyk wrote the 2nd Edition of Frédéric Chopin: A Research and Information Guide for the Routledge Music Bibliographies Series (ISBN 978-0-415-99884-0). is an annotated bibliography concerning both the nature of primary sources related to the composer and the scope and significance of the secondary sources which deal with…Continue Reading 2015 in Review – Publications
The month of December encourages world-wide a Holiday spirit of gift-giving, and this year especially the Polish Music Center found itself on the receiving end of many wonderful gifts and donations from our friends across the globe. Teresa Chylińska—the world’s leading expert on Szymanowski anda great friend of PMC—donated two important publications to us recently….Continue Reading 2015 in Review – PMC Donations
The first concert played by the Warsaw National Philharmonic in its hall, newly-reconstructed after war-time destruction, was given on Feb 21, 1955. The recording of this historic concert—now digitally re-mastered by Grammy Award winning sound engineers Aleksander Nagórko and Andrzej Sasin—was released on Warner Classics under the title Warsaw Philharmonic Archives: The 1st Concert 1955 on Feb…Continue Reading 2015 in Review – Discography
The late Henryk Mikołaj Górecki’s Symphony No. 4 “Tansman Episody”— the final version was orchestrated by Górecki’s son, Mikolaj Górecki—had its US Premiere on Jan 16-18, 2015 by the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall, led by maestro Andrey Boreyko with violin soloist Nikolaj Znaider. The World Premiere of Górecki’s Symphony No. 4 was performed by the London…Continue Reading 2015 in Review – Premieres